Two people — one in New Hampshire and a second in New York — have died, 16 have been hospitalized and 28 have been sickened in an outbreak of E. coli that may be linked to ground beef distributed on the East Coast, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.

As of October 28, there have been 28 persons whose illness appears to be associated with this outbreak, all but three from the Northeast. Eighteen of the 28 are from New England, says the CDC's Lola Scott Russell. There have been two cases of hemolytic uremic syndrome, which causes kidney failure.

The New York patient had other ongoing health problems, says Russell. The New Hampshire death is still under investigation, she says. Patients were between 1 and 84 years old — 68% were male. Most became ill between the middle of September to the middle of October.

State health departments, the CDC and the Dept. of Agriculture began to investigate the outbreak in mid-October. Very early ground beef became the focal point, Russell says.

The hamburger was produced by Ashville, N.Y.-based Fairbank Farms, which recalled more than 545,000 pounds of its product on Oct. 31. The ground beef was distributed in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic states, and the company says customers can return the meat to the store where they bought it for full credit.

The hamburger was sold by several popular chains, including ACME, BJ's, Ford Brothers, Giant Food Stores, Price Chopper, Shaw's and Trader Joe's, the company says. Each package has the number "ET. 492" on the label.

This is the third recall for Fairbank Farms. In Sept. 2007 it recalled 884 pounds of ground beef products because of possible E. coli contamination, according to USDA records. In May 2008, it recalled 22,481 pounds of ground beef due to possible contamination with pieces of plastic.

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